Warm snap

It was spring-like in New York today, and tomorrow promises to be even balmier. And it was only at the end of last week’s bitter cold snap that I was encouraging humanity to hang in there, spring is coming!

But it is an insidious trick, a snare for the evil inclination and a bait for the spirit, to be presented with a premature thaw only a week after New Year’s, knowing as we do that it will be torn from us by January’s glacial jaws. Is it better to have thawed and frozen, or never to have warmed at all?

Some people encountering such low-pressure lure believe it wise to keep themselves clad in their icy exteriors, despite the transparent promise of a few days of coatless weather. They focus on the frigid fact that the warmup is doomed, and would rather maintain an algid affect for the long haul than risk the heartbreak of halfhearted heartwarming.

Others take a quick meltdown for what it’s worth and pull down their frosty fences, figuring it’s a lot cheaper than a standby flight to Hawaii and less flaky, too. But is it really wise to expose oneself to such spiritual swings? Whose soul, after all, is made of Pyrex, immune to such raw shifts of hot and cold?

Not mine. My heart can’t handle the melt-and-freeze cycle, crystallizing and cracking with each go-round.

Allen Austersaid

If you lived where I live, Ron, you wouldn’t need to ask. The thaw inevitably leads to a flooded barn and driveway; and when the inevitable freeze returns, that driveway becomes an ice sheet. Better no thaw than a brief thaw.

Good thing you don’t believe in global warming, Ron. Otherwise, you would enjoy this phenomenon a lot less. Just kick you feet up, and watch the polar bears go extinct. Then watch the sea levels rise. And then nix every responsible environmental measure proposed as “bad for business.”